


Drag Me Away (Towards You)

by mandosblaster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: How it should have happened, M/M, SPOILERS: 15x18, cas deserved better than this, i just miss my angel :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27578003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandosblaster/pseuds/mandosblaster
Summary: -- SPOILERS FOR 15x18 --Cas was drowning in the feeling of demise nipping at his heels.Dean was refusing for this moment to be their last.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 68





	Drag Me Away (Towards You)

**Author's Note:**

> Songs I listened to while writing:  
> \- "The One That Got Away (Katy Perry) but you just finished in another life" by ramona on YT  
> \- Lover of Mine by 5 Seconds of Summer  
> \- everything i wanted by Billie Eilish  
> \- Listen Before I Go by Billie Eilish  
> \- Memories by Maroon 5  
> \- Forever Yours by Grayscale

_ “Why does this sound like a goodbye?” _

Dean could barely allow the words to float past his lips. Everything they had become -- everything they had  _ yet _ to become -- came crashing down on his heart and forced him into a paralyzing state of shock. 

Cas was rambling. Talking about Dean; how he was full of love; how he  _ was _ love. The hunter had never heard Cas talk like that -- so broken and beautiful and  _ free _ \-- and it was scaring the hell out of him. The angel’s words dripped with a not yet spoken goodbye and Dean was  _ terrified _ . Because with the way things were going, it sounded like he was about to lose the love of his life  _ again _ . 

“Because it is,” came Cas’ dreaded confirmation, a smile sweet as honey tinged with tears painting his forlorn face. Dean opened his mouth, refusal dying on his tongue. “I love you.”

Dean wanted to say it back.  _ Fuck  _ he  _ needed _ to, but he couldn’t. His heart was pounding and he couldn’t  _ breathe _ . His body was shutting down because  _ what the fuck is happening right now _ ? It wasn’t right for Cas to be saying goodbye -- not when such a revelation was being admitted. Not when their future together was never even given a chance to happen. 

What he needed right now was for Cas to stay. He needed the angel alive for him and for Jack and for Sam. He  _ needed him. _

“Don’t do this, Cas,” Dean begged. The words were on the tip of his tongue.  _ I love you, too _ \-- but before he could even bring life to the sentence he heard a wooshing, squelching sound from behind him. 

Dean turned his head to watch as the dungeon’s wall broke up, a pit of nothingness consuming the room. A chill of despair and desperation tore through Dean’s body. Tears spilt out of Dean’s eyes in angry streams down his face as his irises burned into the slowly widening abyss. 

He turned back to see Cas was already looking at him. Everything was happening too fast -- why would Cas make a deal like that? Why hadn’t he told Dean after it happened? Why did he have to leave so soon?

Dean saw everything happening in slow motion. 

“ _ Cas _ ,” Dean begged again, his mouth once again attempting to form the words that his body wasn’t allowing him to say. Cas smiled at him so brokenly and Dean felt every piece of his heart crumble at the sight. 

The angel reached out, gripping the shoulder he once had all those years ago when he rescued the hunter from hell, and Dean couldn’t help but feel yearning gnaw at him. 

“Goodbye, Dean,” Cas uttered, putting a finality to the moment. Dean went to speak but found the action nearly impossible. This was how their last moment would go? Full of tears and a confession that unravelled several years of yearning and love and sadness and  _ need _ ?

No, Dean refused. He refused to let Cas go that easy. His head was swimming -- so caught up in Death pounding at the door and Cas saying goodbye and demise lurking right behind them -- but one thing was clear to him:  _ Cas is not fucking dying today _ . 

“No,” Dean muttered, his eyes searching the angel’s devastated blues. The hunter gripped Cas’ forearm tight, refusing to let this moment be their last. It simply couldn’t be, not when so much had yet to happen for them. Not when Dean wasn’t ready to say goodbye (not like he ever  _ would _ be ready). 

“What?” Cas remarked, his head tilting to the side ever so slightly in his usual look of confusion. The goodbye left his eyes momentarily as he glanced between the growing abyss and Dean a few times. 

Tendrils of black shot out from The Empty just as the door to the dungeon splintered apart. Death walked in with murder in her eyes, but she never got the chance to strike because the nothingness began to consume her. 

“ _ No _ ,” Dean said again, pulling the angel to his chest in a tight hug. “The Empty won’t take you; not today!”

“Dean, the deal--”

“Fuck the deal!” Dean yelled, clinging to the angel as the cold hands of The Empty began to wrap their way around Cas’ body. “You’re staying  _ here _ , where you belong.”

“I don’t wanna die,” Cas admitted in a muffle against Dean’s chest as his demise nipped at his heels, spreading the feeling of utter coldness through his body. Dean glared daggers at the black sludge that tried to take his everything away from him. “But I want  _ you _ to live.” Cas was trying to pull away from Dean but the hunter refused. He simply tightened his grip around the angel’s shoulders -- his fingers digging into the material of his trenchcoat -- as he held onto his everything in such desperation.

“You selfless son of a bitch,” Dean was mumbling, his tears free falling into the angel’s hair. “How could I allow myself to fall in love with someone so reckless -- so  _ dumb _ .” Dean couldn’t  _ breathe _ . “I won’t let you go. Not again -- not after  _ everything _ .” He was rambling and hysteric, but  _ fuck _ , he couldn’t allow Cas to die. He wouldn’t.

“Dean-”

“ _ No! _ ” Dean interrupted as he started to drag Cas out of the room and away from the black sludge. “No more sacrificing, no more dying, just--  _ no more _ ,” Dean said sternly. “We’re in this together. We go down swingin’ or we don’t go down at all.” 

“Okay,” Cas was saying as he pulled away from Dean’s embrace. “Okay.” The angel stared at Dean with such love the hunter felt his heart heal a bit from its devastated state. Perhaps the day still had an ounce of hope left in it. 

“Do you know anything about The Empty? Anything at all?” Dean asked as they rushed out of the dungeon and towards the map room. 

“It’s nothingness -- a pit where angels and demons go when they die. There’s nothing to it, just  _ black _ ,” Cas explained quickly. 

“Angels and demons, right? Not humans?” Dean asked, a plan already brewing. It was simple, and maybe Cas would hate it, but at the same time maybe he wouldn’t. And really, what other options did they have at the moment? Cas was moments away from dying and Dean refused to let that happen. 

“Correct,” Cas confirmed. He eyed Dean for a moment as they jogged through the hallways, taking the longest route possible to the map room in an attempt to throw The Empty off. 

They stopped once they reached the bottom of the stairs in the map room; they could hear the rushing sound of The Empty approaching. It crashed into walls and doors, busting down tables and chairs and  _ everything _ , really, as it raged towards the pair. 

“What if you become human,” Dean said in a rush, his hand reaching for Cas’ wrist subconsciously. “The Empty can’t take you if you have a human soul.”

“I don’t know how to answer that,” Cas said after a beat, searching Dean’s eyes -- for what, the hunter didn’t know. But the squelching was getting closer; they didn’t have  _ time _ for Cas to debate becoming human. Dean knew that Cas would miss being an angel to some extent, but he  _ had  _ admitted he liked being human once. 

“Dammit, Cas, we don’t have time for you to debate this! I-” Dean paused, looking with such ferocity into Cas’ eyes that for just a moment, the angel’s impending doom was only a background worry. The sound of The Empty ravaging the bunker floated away as Dean spoke his next words, “I love you, too, you dumbass, and I’m not letting you die; not when there’s a solution!”

Cas opened his mouth before he closed it again, his face softening into something of acceptance. 

In a swift movement, he dropped his angel blade from his sleeve, flipped the handle towards Dean, and handed it towards the hunter. Dean took it quickly while Cas concentrated on producing a bottle to store the grace in. 

Before Cas could get the bottle, The Empty tore through the room like a tornado. Everything was consumed into the devastating blackness. 

“Cas, come on man, you got this,” Dean muttered as he faced The Empty, standing protectively in front of Cas. He knew he stood no match against the celestial force that was currently reaching its black tendrils out once again, but he would be damn sure he at least  _ tried _ to keep The Empty away from Cas. 

“Got it,” Cas breathed out at last. Dean whipped around, angel blade in hand, and gently slid it across the angel’s throat. Light bubbled to the surface, creating an eerie whine, and Cas help the bottle up to his throat to catch the grace that began to spill out. The Empty wrapped its way around Cas, stopping only when all of the grace left the him. 

Cas collapsed to the ground in a heap, the bottle of his grace loosely in hand, and dabbed at the cut on his throat with his forefinger, assessing how much it was bleeding (luckily, not much). The Empty seemed confused for a moment, judging by how it remained wrapped around Cas, constricting some of the ex-angel’s movements and causing him to lay paralyzed in fear as the celestial being debated whether it could still take Cas or not. 

“You aren’t taking him,” Dean said after a moment. “You  _ can’t _ \-- he’s not an angel anymore. So you can crawl back into your little hole of nothingness, and you can go fuck yourself,” he seethed, his knuckles whitening around the angel blade in his hands. 

The Empty began moving, and at first Dean thought it was trying to consume Cas even though he was no longer an angel. But soon it was retreating, inch by inch back towards the dungeon where it had first come from. In squelched and crackled and left behind such an utter feeling of cold and dread in its wake, causing Dean to shudder involuntarily as it slithered away from the pair. 

Soon enough, it was gone. Cas was safe and  _ alive _ and Dean had to do all he could to keep from rushing towards the angel and holding onto him forever. 

“Dean,” Cas muttered, standing on shaky legs. Dean grabbed the ex-angel’s arm to steady him. “I’m alive -- you did it.”

“Like I said, we either go down swingin’ or we don’t go down at all,” Dean breathed out, tossing the angel blade onto the map table without looking. He heard it clang against what he assumed was the chair and then the floor, but he didn’t care. His eyes never left Cas’, because it felt so surreal for the two of them to be alive and  _ together _ . Against all odds, just like always. 

“I meant what I said,” Cas muttered as he leaned back against a metal support beam under the stairs. He was scratching at the dried blood on his sleeve from when he had checked his throat, his eyes finding the distraction perhaps a bit more interesting than it should be. Dean could have smirked -- the poor ex-angel was  _ nervous _ and it was  _ cute _ \-- but he couldn’t find it in him to be coy. Not when he had almost lost him forever. “Knowing I can’t have you changes nothing. Simply loving you is my happiness, and if you do not reciprocate then I can’t hold it against you.”

“Cas?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.” Dean was then reaching out in a flash, grabbing his impossibility with both hands, and kissed him. It was nothing obscene -- not like how Dean usually kissed people -- but it  _ was  _ fierce. Filled with years of yearning and the pounding fear that still hadn’t left the hunter’s veins. 

Cas was first to pull back, dazedness painting his eyes with stars. 

“I already told you, I love you, too, dumbass,” Dean whispered, his eyes clenched shut as he leant his forehead against Cas’. 

“Oh,” Cas said after a beat, a shallow chuckle on his lips. “Right.”

Dean opened his eyes and found the ex-angel smiling at him widely, the goodbye his eyes once held replaced with such a lively shine the hunter just  _ had _ to bring Cas in for a crushing hug. 

“Don’t ever do that again,” Dean said sternly as he held his impossibility in his arms. He buried his face into the crook of Cas’ neck, breathing him in and relishing in the reality that he was  _ alive. _

“I won’t,” Cas said into Dean’s hair. He then took a deep breath, weighing his next words as if they still held the possibility of being poisonous. With anxiety in his heart, he muttered, “I’m happy.”

Nothing came. There was a complete presence of everything -- a total lack of nothingness. The Empty was gone, and with that so was the possibility of loss. So he held Dean tight, gripping everything he held dear against his heart forever.


End file.
